AccScience Publishing / MSAM / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/MSAM025480112
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Blast resistance of polyurethane-filled 316L stainless steel honeycomb sandwich structures fabricated by selective laser melting

Xingran Zheng1,2 ,  Jingbo Huang1,2 ,  Xiaoshuai Li1 ,  Liangjun Ma1,2 ,  Chao Zhang3 ,  Yangwei Wang4 ,  Pengwan Chen1,2 ,  Jing Xie1,2*
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1 State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Safety Protection, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China
2 Yangtze Delta Region Academy of Beijing Institute of Technology, Jiaxing, Zhejiang, China
3 School of Water Conservancy and Transportation, Yellow River Laboratory, Underground Engineering Research Institute, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, China
4 National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Materials Under Shock and Impact, Beijing, China
MSAM, 025480112 https://doi.org/10.36922/MSAM025480112
Received: 25 November 2025 | Revised: 15 June 2026 | Accepted: 23 June 2026 | Published online: 21 July 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Honeycomb sandwich structures (HSS) have attracted increasing attention for blast protection because of their lightweight characteristics, high specific strength, and excellent energy absorption capacity; however, the near-field blast response and component-level energy absorption mechanisms of integrated metal–polymer honeycomb structures remain insufficiently understood. In this study, a blast-resistant HSS fabricated by selective laser melting (SLM) using 316L stainless steel and filled with polyurethane (PU) was designed and experimentally investigated under near-field explosion loading. Three scaled distances of Z = 0.1315, 0.1972, and 0.2630 m·kg−1/3 were tested to evaluate the blast resistance and energy absorption characteristics of the PU-filled SLM HSS compared with an equivalent areal-density solid plate. The mechanical tests were conducted on SLM-fabricated 316L stainless steel, and the Johnson–Cook constitutive parameters were calibrated from the measured stress–strain responses. A coupled fluid–structure interaction numerical model based on the S-ALE algorithm in LS-DYNA was established and validated against experiments. Results show that the PU-filled HSS exhibits markedly smaller back-face deflection and improved blast resistance compared to the solid plate. At the closest stand-off distance, the back-face residual deflection of the HSS decreased by 20.4%, indicating that the honeycomb core and PU filling effectively attenuate transmitted impact energy. Across the tested stand-off distances, the honeycomb core and PU filling contributed 44.6–46.3% and 22.7–25.5% of the total absorbed energy, respectively. The combined mechanisms of plastic buckling, viscoelastic dissipation, and micropore compression endow the composite core with superior energy absorption efficiency and structural integrity under extreme loading. This study provides an effective design strategy for lightweight, high-performance blast-resistant sandwich structures.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
Honeycomb sandwich structure
Selective laser melting
Polyurethane
Wave propagation
Mechanical response
Funding
This research was funded by the Program of National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Materials under Shock and Impact (No. 614902230107) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China General Project (No. 12272053).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare there are no conflicts of interest.
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